MidAmerican Energy

MidAmerican Energy Holdings Company, through its subsidiaries, engages in the generation, transmission, storage, distribution, and supply of energy. It generates energy from coal, natural gas, geothermal, wind, and hydroelectric resources.

The company owns and operates an electric utility company in the western United States; a combined electric and natural gas utility company in the midwestern United States; natural gas pipeline companies in the United States; electricity distribution companies in Great Britain; a diversified portfolio of domestic and international independent power projects; and a residential real estate brokerage firm in the United States. It sells natural gas and transportation services to utilities, marketers, municipalities, and end-use customers. The company’s real estate services include mortgage originations, title and closing services, property and casualty insurance, home warranties, and other home-related services.

Since 2006, PacifiCorp has been a wholly owned subsidiary of MidAmerican Energy Holdings.

As of December 31, 2007, MidAmerican served approximately 6.2 million electricity customers and end users, as well as approximately 0.7 million natural gas customers; operated approximately 17,000 miles of pipeline in operation; and had interests in approximately 17,000 net owned megawatts of power generation facilities in operation and under construction.

MidAmerican Energy Holdings, formerly known as CalEnergy Company, Inc., was founded in 1971 and changed its name to MidAmerican Energy Holdings Company in 1999. The company is based in Des Moines, Iowa.

As of January 31, 2008, MidAmerican Energy Holdings Company operated as a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, Inc.

Lobbyists
MidAmerican Energy Holdings Company spent $225,000 on its in-house lobbying team during 2008. The registered lobbyists were Craig Montesano, Jonathan Weisgall and Jay Carriere. (Carriere was only working on the account during the first two quaters of the year).

Power portfolio
Out of its total 14,411 megawatts (MW) of electric generating capacity in 2005 (1.35% of the U.S. total), MidAmerican produced 71.3% from coal, 15.3% from natural gas, 7.9% from hydroelectricity, 2.6% from geothermal, 2.5% from wind, and 0.4% from oil. MidAmerican owns power plants in California, Idaho, Iowa, Illinois, Montana, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming.

Existing coal-fired power plants
In 2005, MidAmerican Energy (and, through them, Berkshire Hathaway) owned 11 coal-fired power plants with 29 generating units totalling 10,282 MW of capacity. Here is a list of MidAmerican's coal power plants:

In 2006, MidAmerican's 11 coal-fired power plants emitted 69.0 million tons of CO2 (1.15% of all U.S. CO2 emissions) and 177,000 tons of SO2 (1.18% of all U.S. SO2 emissions).

Council Bluffs Energy Center Unit 4 is an operational coal plant near Council Bluffs, Iowa and the Missouri River that began operating in 2007.

Death and disease attributable to fine particle pollution from MidAmerican Energy coal plants
In 2010, Abt Associates issued a study commissioned by the Clean Air Task Force, a nonprofit research and advocacy organization, quantifying the deaths and other health effects attributable to fine particle pollution from coal-fired power plants. Fine particle pollution consists of a complex mixture of soot, heavy metals, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen oxides. Among these particles, the most dangerous are those less than 2.5 microns in diameter, which are so tiny that they can evade the lung's natural defenses, enter the bloodstream, and be transported to vital organs. Impacts are especially severe among the elderly, children, and those with respiratory disease. The study found that over 13,000 deaths and tens of thousands of cases of chronic bronchitis, acute bronchitis, asthma, congestive heart failure, acute myocardial infarction, dysrhythmia, ischemic heart disease, chronic lung disease, and pneumonia each year are attributable to fine particle pollution from U.S. coal plant emissions. These deaths and illnesses are major examples of coal's external costs, i.e. uncompensated harms inflicted upon the public at large. Low-income and minority populations are disproportionately impacted as well, due to the tendency of companies to avoid locating power plants upwind of affluent communities. To monetize the health impact of fine particle pollution from each coal plant, Abt assigned a value of $7,300,000 to each 2010 mortality, based on a range of government and private studies. Valuations of illnesses ranged from $52 for an asthma episode to $440,000 for a case of chronic bronchitis.

Table 1: Death and disease attributable to fine particle pollution from MidAmerican Energy coal plants
Source: "Health Impacts - annual - of Existing Plants," Clean Air Task Force Excel worksheet, available under "Data Annex" at "Death and Disease from Power Plants," Clean Air Task Force. Note: This data includes the following plants owned by MidAmerican Energy and subsidiary PacifiCorp: Council Bluffs Energy Center, Laramie River Station, Louisa Generating Station, Riverside Generating Station (Iowa), Ottumwa Generating Station, Dave Johnston, Jim Bridger, Carbon, Hunter, Huntington, Naughton, and Wyodak.

Coal Ash Waste and Water Contamination
In August 2010, a study released by the Environmental Integrity Project, the Sierra Club and Earthjustice, "In Harm's Way: Lack of Federal Coal Ash Regulations Endangers Americans and their Environment," reported that Iowa had significant groundwater contamination from coal ash. The report identified 39 coal combustion waste (CCW) disposal sites in 21 states that have contaminated groundwater or surface water with toxic metals and other pollutants based on monitoring data and other information available in state agency files.

The report built on an earlier 2010 report by the Environmental Integrity Project and Earthjustice, "Out of Control: Mounting Damages from Coal Ash Waste Sites", which documented similar damage at another 31 coal combustion waste dumpsites in 14 states. When added to the 67 damage cases that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) has already acknowledged, the total number of sites polluted by coal ash or coal scrubber sludge comes to at least 137 in 34 states.

The latter report listed Iowa's George Neal Station South and George Neal Station North were two sites that have groundwater contamination due to coal ash waste. "In Harm's Way: Lack of Federal Coal Ash Regulations Endangers Americans and their Environment" found that the coal ash site for the George Neal Station North had exceeded the Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) for arsenic at all six wells since 2011, at levels 22 times the MCL. In 2010, MCL for arsenic was exceeded in 15 wells. High levels of iron, manganese and sulfate were also in groundwater downgradient from the monofill.

MidAmerican annual toxins release
A Center for American progress (CAP) analysis of 2009 Toxics Release Inventory data found that MidAmerican’s power plants in Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, Utah and Wyoming released a total of nearly 7,000 pounds of lead and mercury into the air.

MidAmerican Energy’s 2009 toxics by the pound included:
 * 1.8 million pounds of acid gases emitted, which the American Lung Association reports trigger “irritation to skin, eye, nose throat, [and] breathing passages.”
 * 4,063 pounds of lead emitted, which affects kidney function, the nervous system, immune system, reproductive and development systems, as well as the cardiovascular system and oxygen carrying capacity of the blood, according to the EPA.
 * 2,689 pounds of mercury emitted, which harm vital organs and brain function, according to Physicians for Social Responsibility.

Coal Plant Cancellations
In 2007, PacifiCorp, a subsidiary of MidAmerican Energy, cancelled six proposed coal-fired power plants. These included Utah's Intermountain Power Project Unit 3, Jim Bridger Unit 5, and four proposed plants previously included in PacifiCorp's Integrated Resource Plan. The cancellations came in the wake of pressure from regulators and citizen groups, including a petition drive organized by Salt Lake City commercial real estate broker Alexander Lofft and directed at Buffett personally. The 1,600 petitioners, who described themselves in a letter to Buffett as "a collection of citizens, business owners and managers, service professionals, public servants, and organization representatives ... your friends and new customers here in Utah," explained that, in their view, any further expansion of coal generation in Utah would "compromise our health, obscure our viewsheds, shrink and contaminate our watersheds, and thin out our most beloved snowpack," concluding that "our attractiveness as a place to live and work is also threatened, and so is our economic competitiveness as a major metro area and a state, compromising our recent gains in income and property values."

Existing Coal Mines

 * Deer Creek Mine

Proposed nuclear plant
As of 2011, MidAmerican Energy is pursuing legislation to build a small nuclear plant in Iowa. At 540 megawatts, it would be among the nation's smallest. The Iowa House's version of the nuclear power bill, House File 561, is on debate in April 2011. The Midwest grid has as much as 10,000 megawatts of surplus power, raising questions about whether the state needs additional power plants. MidAmerican said that it is required by law to provide power to its customers, and buying it off the grid is expensive, while surplus power can be sold to other utilities. Environmental groups say the utility should be focused more on beefing up energy conservation programs and building on some solid investments in wind, solar and other renewable energy sources.

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